In Ho Chi Minh City, diverse and attractive Christmas-style products and services are being offered to customers, even though Christmas Day is more than two weeks away.

Along with the Christmas atmosphere spreading everywhere, large trade centers as well as small shops are decorated colorfully to welcome the festive season and attract customers, many of whom are willing to generously spend money on celebrating the Yuletide.

Among Christmas services are shops where guests can self-photograph with beautiful backgrounds and Christmas-themed items they can wear or hold while taking pictures.

Stepping into Life Four Cuts, a photography studio located at The New Playground, an entertainment and shopping complex on Ly Tu Trong Street in downtown District 1, two young girls, Huong Giang and Bao Tran, excitedly chose a Noel-style headband for each of them before posing for photographs.

“If you photograph yourself somewhere and take your photos to another place for printing, this will be time-consuming. Instead, just come here and everything will be simpler for you,” Bao Tran told Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper reporters.

Tran added that she and her friend wanted to have the best images showing their exciting moments during this Christmas.

“If a photography studio wants to attract customers, it must decorate itself and provide nice items for clients to use when posing for photos, such as hairbands, headwear including conical hats, and flowers, among others, associated with Christmas or Tet [Lunar New Year],” Tran said. 

On normal days, it must also have cute seasonal accessories, she added.

Within less than 10 minutes, dozens of young people arrived at the shop. This showed a high demand for such services among young people.

Vo Phu Vinh, the shop manager, told Tuoi Tre that his shop welcomed around 1,000 customers per day, who can freely use hair straighteners and hair curlers before self-photographing at a charge of VND70,000 (US$2.9) per two small-sized pictures and VND100,000 ($4.2) per two larger ones.

The shop provides clients with a range of Christmas-style photo frames for choice.

Meanwhile, many major beverage chains have launched their Christmas products.

One of them is the Starbucks coffee chain that has offered cups and thermo flasks depicting images of pine trees, snowflakes, and other Christmas items, at prices ranging from VND300,000 ($12.5) to VND680,000 ($28.4) per product.

Besides coffee, this chain provides clients with various beverage products, Christmas cakes, handbooks, and other items.

Many customers are willing to spend millions of dong (VND1 million = $41.7) buying Christmas-version cups and vases that are also being sold in South Korea and Japan.

Many other drink chains, including Phuc Long, The Coffee House, and Gong Cha, already launched new drinks imbued with the colors of this coming festive season. 

Also operating busily on this festive season are gift shops that are offering clients attractive items, including Christmas decoration kits, pine trees, Christmas stars, and other specific products.

Working at ‘To Ban Vo’ (literally ‘I Sell Socks’) shop on Dinh Cong Trang Street in District 1, Thao Nguyen said, “Christmas is usually the best sale season of the year.”

From the beginning of December, many customers start buying Christmas stockings, the shop assistant told Tuoi Tre.

Retail price for each pair of socks is VND65,000 ($2.7) while a box of four pairs is priced at VND139,000 - 249,000 ($5.8 - 10.4), Nguyen added.

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